Health and socio-demographic implications of the Covid-19 second pandemic wave in Israel, compared with the first wave

Abstract

Background Israel’s containment of the first wave of Covid-19 was relatively successful. Soon afterwards, however, in the summer months, a harsher pandemic wave developed, resulting in many more seriously ill and dead Israelis. Israel was the world’s first country to impose a second general lockdown. The present study outlines the early months of Israel’s second pandemic wave, until the imposition of the second general lockdown, and their impact on various communities. The investigation is conducted in conjunction with five sociodemographic variables: population density, socioeconomic status, rate of elderly population, minority status (Jewish / Arab identity) and religiosity (Ultra-Orthodox vs. other Jewish communities). Methods The analysis is based on a cross sectional study of morbidity rates, investigated on a residential community basis. Following the descriptive statistics, we move on to present a multivariate analysis to explore associations between the five aforementioned sociodemographic variables and Covid-19 morbidity in Israel in the early second pandemic wave vs. the first Covid-19 outbreak. Results Both the descriptive statistics and regressions show morbidity rates to be significantly and positively associated with communities’ population density and significantly and negatively associated with socioeconomic status (SES) and the size of elderly population. These results differ from Wave I morbidity, which was not significantly associated with SES. Another difference vis-a-vis Wave I is the rise of morbidity in Arab communities that led to the disappearance of the previously observed significant negative association of morbidity with minority (Arab) status. Exceptional morbidity was found in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Conclusion The second wave of Covid-19 in Israel has profoundly affected marginalized communities characterized by high residential density, low SES and minority status. Other marginalized and disempowered communities have also been badly hit. While acknowledging the potential contribution of various possible causes, we highlight the policy response of Israel’s government during the early weeks of the second Covid-19 outbreak, suggesting that the severe second wave might possibly be associated with belated, undecided government response during this period.

The “Ambassadorial” Journalist: Twitter as a Performative Platform for Ultra-Orthodox Journalists during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In Israel, the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed on 27 February 2020 (Birenbaum-Carmeli and Chassida 2021 ), culminating in 3,987,834 cases and 10,559 deaths by 9 April 2022 (Israel Ministry of Health 2022 ). Similar to other countries, the Israeli government has encouraged personal hygiene practices and physical distancing, implemented local lockdowns, and conducted mass testing in an attempt to slow down the spread of the virus (Israel Ministry of Health 2020a ).…”

“…Following the approval of vaccines in December 2020 (Food and Drug Administration 2021), Israel began vaccinating its population against the virus (Leshem and Wilder-Smith 2021 ), yet this study focuses on the first months of the pandemic prior to the rollout of vaccines. During the time of the study, Israel experienced its first two waves of the pandemic, which were countered by general lockdowns and heightened health restrictions (Birenbaum-Carmeli and Chassida 2021 ), as well as cellphone tracking and local lockdowns (Maor et al., 2020 ). While both waves were eventually successfully curved, they resulted in 3260 excess deaths, representing a 6% increase in mortality in past years (Haklai et al.…”

“…These claims were comprised of reports of multiple ultra-Orthodox communities deliberately ignoring government health regulations (Maor et al., 2020 ). While these anecdotal accusations were unsubstantiated by statistical data at the time of the study, studies published since have retrospectively revealed significantly higher levels of morbidity and mortality in the ultra-Orthodox community due to the COVID-19 virus (Birenbaum-Carmeli and Chassida 2021 ; Muhsen et al. 2021 ; Saban et al.…”

“…The study includes all of the tweets of the 20 most popular ultra-Orthodox journalists on Twitter during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel (1 March to 16 August 2020). This chosen time period was characterized by elevated morbidity and mortality levels among the ultra-Orthodox community relative to the general population (Birenbaum-Carmeli and Chassida 2021 ; Muhsen et al. 2021 ; Saban et al.…”

“Fighting for life and losing”: Intensive Care Unit Nursing Staff’s Experience With COVID-19 Patient Deaths During the First Two Waves: A Qualitative Study

“…In addition, Israel had a death toll of less than 300 persons, demonstrating 33 deaths per million and a fatality rate of 1.67%, lower than in most of European countries. 8 However, in June 2020, the amount of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 began growing, to 4000–6000 new cases a day in mid-September. The number of deaths reached about 1200 or 130 deaths per million.…”